I was paired with a lovely lady in Augusta, Georgia by the name of Sonya Stille. Sonya and I have communicated by email several times and have become good friends on Facebook. As this bead soup party has been moving along Sonya and I have been learning more about one another. We are quite similar, I believe. She is a wife and mother, like me and we both seem to have similar personalities. I think Sonya and I could sit down for a cup of coffee and chat for hours if given the opportunity. I have also been discovering little things here and there about her beading and am very excited to see what she has done with the bead soup mix I have sent her.
I received a lovely parcel in the post from Sonya and it was exactly my style of beads, focal and toggle! Even my husband looked at the mix and said, "Well, that certainly is you". He knows me so well. :)
Let me dive right into this with a picture of the soup mix I received from Sonya.
Sonya sent me Snakeskin agates, brown freshwater pearls, copper flower shaped toggle and a pendant SHE made herself.
Here is a closer look at the pendant Sonya made.
So given this bead soup I knew immediately I was going to make a necklace and pair of earrings. Of course, with the copper toggle and focal it was going to be all copper as well. I poured through my bead boxes and found some beautiful Czech glass beads I recently purchased at my local bead store and I also recently purchased some decorative copper spacer beads that gave the timeless, antique feel I was aiming for this necklace. The necklace went together quite quickly and I incorporated the beads Sonya sent with my personal stash and am quite pleased with the end result. (I already had someone offer to buy the necklace!)
The necklace and earrings!
The earrings were something different for me. I knew what I wanted them to look like, but wasn't quite sure how to get there as I have not worked a lot with 26 gauge wire and itty bitty beads like the freshwater pearls Sonya sent me. I started with a couple of coppe hoops I had in my stash and I took a VERY LONG piece of 26 gauge wire and I started wrapping it around the hoop and stringing on pearls at intervals until I had this happy looking sun staring at me. I then made a couple of earwires from eyepins and VOILA! My earrings came together just like that. Again, I was tickled and now have found a new love of small beads and 26 gauge wire. Oh the new obsession this has created! LOL
Here are a few more pictures of my necklace and earrings. Please hold on after these pictures for the piece that came out of nowhere!
Another close-up of the beautiful focal made by Sonya and the sweet flower toggle she sent me.
The earrings using 26 guage wire and freshwater pearls, snakeskin agates dropping from them and my handmade earwires.
So, I finished these pieces over a week ago. The designs for these two pieces came very quickly to me, but the other day I was making rings and this idea came into my head for a ring and my bead soup. I quickly got to work and again, trying something new for me, I was pleased with how it turned out for my first try. I used 1 of the snakeskin agates and wire wrapped it with 20 gauge wire on my steel ring mandrel, then I used 26 gauge wire and string freshwater pearls around the agate giving it a very elegant feel/look. I didn't use copper on this piece like I did the first 2 pieces, I resorted back to my comfort zone, antique brass. Here are a few pictures of how my bead soup ring turned out.
All in all I'm pleased with my creations, I enjoyed making them, I enjoyed the anticipation of seeing what Bead Soup Mix I was going to receive from Sonya, I enjoyed meeting Sonya and so many other talented jewelry designers in the Bead Soup Cafe and I feel this helped me to step a little outside of my comfort zone and take a risk at something new/different. I would like to thank Lori Anderson (http://www.prettythingsblog.com/) for being such a wonderful hostess and again for organizing such a HUGE amount of people.
You can follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/GettaGiftJewellery. You can visit my Etsy Shop at www.etsy.com/shop/gettagift.
Now! First, I am looking forward to hopping on over to my partners blog to see what she has created. We can all catch up with Sonya at http://dreaminofbeads.blogspot.com/. You can also follow Sonya on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/SAS-Jewelry-Designs/291318200921323.
Finally, there are 200 brilliant jewelry designers who participated in this Bead Soup Blog Party and below you can find a link to all their pages and see what creations they made with their soup mixes. I'm looking forward to sitting down with a Diet Coke and enjoying all the lovely sites! Thank you and Enjoy!
